


239. cigarette ashes on motel floors

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [108]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8293933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Shoulda brought the tent, Sarah thinks to herself, and not for the first time. But: the idea of camping out with Helena on this terrible road trip to Cold River makes her nauseous. The idea of Helena being that close to her makes her nauseous. So here they are. Shitty motel. At least – thank god – there are two beds.





	

“This is a _nice_ hotel,” Helena says, the second they step into their shitty motel room. There are ashes ground into the carpet, and several suspicious stains on the bedspread. Helena’s mouth is open into a round, perfect O shape. _Shoulda brought the tent_ , Sarah thinks to herself, and not for the first time. But: the idea of camping out with Helena on this terrible road trip to Cold River makes her nauseous. The idea of Helena being that close to her makes her nauseous. So here they are. Shitty motel. At least – thank god – there are two beds.

Helena launches herself onto one of them and starts bouncing, immediately and gleefully. “Cut that out,” Sarah says. “You’re gonna break the bloody bed.”

“It’s so soft,” Helena says, flopping down onto it. Her boots are still on the floor. Apparently somewhere in the weird piecemeal catalogue of manners Helena has is _don’t put your shoes on the bed_. Sarah supposes she’s grateful. Probably.

“Yeah, don’t get used to it,” Sarah says. “This is just ‘til we find Cold River, yeah? Then it’s back to—” and she realizes she doesn’t know where it’s back to (Felix’s couch? Helena’s old hideout in that apartment building? could she dump Helena on the _Hendrixes_ somehow?) and trails off. She throws her bag on the other bed and sits down on it. Shit. The mattress is like a rock with ambitions. Probably bedbugs everywhere.

Helena is weirdly silent from the other bed. Sarah turns to look and sees she’s sat up, is sitting with her knees pushed together and her hands planted on either side of her and looking at Sarah.

“I know,” she says quietly. “Only until we find Swan Man. Then we will be separate again.”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “that.” She looks away, fiddles with her phone a bit to give herself something to do. She shouldn’t feel bad. She feels bad.

She can hear Helena’s stomach growling from here. _That_ she feels almost bad about; she rummages in the pocket of her jacket until she finds a few crumpled bills and shoves them in Helena’s direction. “Here,” she says. “Go find a vending machine or sommat.”

Helena’s fingers brush against hers in a way that’s too delicate, too reverent. _Just take the money_ , Sarah wants to say to her, but she doesn’t. No missed calls on her phone. That’s good.

“Thank you, _sestra_ ,” Helena says, and her voice is still quiet. Sarah looks up too soon, before Helena is out the door, and the two of them meet each other’s eyes for a moment that Sarah regrets. She breaks eye contact. Helena leaves.

The room is weirdly quiet without her here. It’s not like – it’s not like Sarah’s used to it, or anything, the sound of Helena’s breathing. She lived her whole life without that sound. She knows how to be herself without it.

She stares at the map for a little while, just in case Cold River will have magically shown up on it, and then she gives up, pulls off her boots, and starts flipping through television channels. At least three channels are running those shitty wildlife shows, and Sarah skips all of them with a thrill of nauseous fear every time she sees a prey-animal getting hunted down.

The door bangs open and she jumps, fumbles for a gun that isn’t there. Helena is standing in the doorway, looking wide-eyed and apologetic.

“Sorry,” she says. “No hands.” Somehow with what couldn’t have been more than five dollars she’s bought an entire armful of snacks.

“Look at you, huntin’ and gatherin’,” Sarah says wryly, and Helena _beams_ at her and dumps all of the snacks on Sarah’s bed.

“Yes,” she says. “If you stick your arm inside the machine it gives you all of its presents without you having to pay. So. Mostly I did not pay. I think maybe we should not go back to that machine, though.”

“Good plan,” Sarah mutters, and picks out a package of cookies. Her own stomach is growling hopefully.

Helena sits on her own bed, starts trying impatiently to pull off the cowboy boots she’s still wearing. All the snacks are on Sarah’s bed. She didn’t take any.

“You gonna eat?” Sarah says, question hanging awkward and weirdly sincere in the air. Helena looks up quickly, eyes wide with surprise.

“Oh,” she says. “No. Those are for you.”

“I can’t eat an entire bloody vending machine, Helena,” Sarah says. “Here.” She picks something at random – some brightly-packaged candy bar – and tosses it lightly onto Helena’s bed. “Can hear your stomach growlin’ from here. Eat somethin’, yeah?”

Helena catches the candy bar before it hits her bed and turns it around and around in her hands. Sarah realizes with the sharp suddenness of a blow to the head that it’s very likely no one has ever given Helena food before. She goes back to the cookies, and tries not to think about it.

“Thank you,” Helena whispers.

“Gonna need your strength to get us to Cold River, yeah?” Sarah says. “Can’t have you fallin’ down on me or somethin’.”

“No,” Helena says. “Not that.” She tears open the candy bar and starts eating it and Sarah – Sarah said something wrong, there, that wasn’t what she should have said but it’s too late to take it back. She thinks: _I’m sorry_. She says: nothing, just sits there on her bed covered in piles and piles of food and watches Helena eat.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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